Éric Gagné, who retired nine years ago, is trying to make a return with Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic…
I’ll just let that sit for a moment. For those of you who don’t know, Gagné played 10 years in the Majors with the Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers, Milwaukee Brewers, but mainly with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The 2003 Cy Young Award winner and three-time all-star is attempting to make a return to professional baseball. Gagné is with the Dodgers at Camelback Ranch in Phoenix, Arizona, as an instructor, however, he has been throwing in the bullpen to warm up for the WBC. He has recently been clocked at 93-95 miles per hour. Could “Gagné” mean “gagner” (French for “to win”) for Team Canada? He held a strong 3.77 ERA, struck out 718 batters, and only gave up 76 home runs during his 10 year career, but can he survive with similar status until possibly March 22? He struck out six and allowed one run on two hits and no walks in five innings with the Ottawa Champions, but that’s a very small amount of time with a sub-minor league level team. While the former Trolley-Dodger has expressed how amazing he feels, currently, one can also compare him to the many minor league prospects and veterans attempting a comeback throughout the ages who felt the same way, but were never heard from again. He’s now putting himself in a select group of ballplayers who had careers and tried to be a star on one final team, yet he’s most likely going to end up in the far more select group who had mediocre careers and still persisted at making a return even though the game rejected them multiple times prior. He may end up being remembered alongside Jimmy Rollins and Bret Saberhagen; players who went from honorable mentions in a team’s success to being a comedic side note in a feeble, lesser, and different team’s ventures. These feel good, end of a career, one-day contract stories are fondly remembered and reminisced about at the end of the season, yet Gagné and Canada’s chance gagner (again, French for “to win”) will surely merely come to be a simple flavor of the month. Vont-Canada gagne? Je ne sais pas, mais ce n’est pas. Jesse A. Cook February 28, 2017 “Canada Va ‘Gagné’”
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Yes, yes, the beloved Cincinnati Reds’ second baseman, Brandon Phillips, has been traded to the Atlanta Braves for the two prospects, Andrew McKirahan and Carlos Portuondo. While he will be missed, this is exactly what they needed to do. BP was good, but he’s getting old, his play has decreased, he had a massive contract that the Reds just didn’t want to hold onto, and he’s rather injury prone. The Reds don’t play against Atlanta until Friday, June 2 when Phillips makes his first return to Cincinnati.
His home run numbers have declined over the years and he’s finally down to near single digits. BP may happen to be a small middle infielder, but with age, you grow slower, and if an aging ballplayer can’t hit for power or run fast, he’s close to useless; this was a genius move for the Redlegs. Despite having a 5.93 ERA after 27 innings in the majors back in 2015 with the Atlanta Braves, McKirahan had a 2.20 ERA in the Minor Leagues. 27 innings is 3 games total, that really is not enough to judge a man’s career, but his years of fantastic minor league baseball is certainly enough to judge his potential. McKirahan is young and will most likely turn out to be one of the Reds’ best moves. Carlos Portuondo comes to us from Cuba, and alongside Jesse Winker and Nick Senzel, he’s one of the prospects that will, not to be political, make Cincinnati great again. He had a fairly low ERA with Santiago de Cuba. In the Minor Leagues, Portuondo merely had a 3.63 Earned Run Average. Billy Hamilton, Adam Duvall, Joey Votto, and Zack Cozart have been signs of why Reds' fans should have hope for their offensive game, yet they have been rather scant of the pitching end. With the recent additions to their pitching staff, the Southwestern Ohio team could make it back to a level they have not reached since the days of Barry Larkin. While they did make the postseason a few years ago with a reincarnation of the 1990 team, it looks like they could definitely be just right back where they were very soon: Cincinnati will have an incredibly strong squad. Though the personality of Brandon Phillips, who my uncle won a contest to talk to over the phone and said was a wonderful person, will surely be missed, his declining play and the improving prospects shine a bright light on the future of the Reds. It’s hard to believe that the era of BP and Joey Votto is ending, yet as dedicated sports fans, we often have to deal with such grief. Cope with it how you will, but we’ll end on bright note: with Cincy’s recent trade, we could soon have a team akin to that of the 1990 World Champions with Barry Larkin, Billy Hatcher, and the Nasty Boys (Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton, and Randy Myers) or the Big Red Machine of the 1970s with Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez. Sit back and enjoy the ride, Reds Country, we’ll be back on top soon enough. Jesse A. Cook February 22, 2017 “BP To ATL In GA” |
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